Compassion

Note: Today’s message is going to touch on extremely controversial topics and may hurt, and they may make you angry. You might find yourself angry with me, in fact, but please consider this message is meant to truly help you, and it comes from the deepest and most open part of my heart. Unfortunately, I’ve had many of the topics below occur in my own family, and it’s taken me a lifetime to resolve my feelings, move forward, and forgive. Finding compassion has been the most important thing I’ve ever done, so please don’t judge me as senseless, even if you disagree. I can teach you any health tip under the sun, but if you’re dealing with one of these issues, it won’t help. For more information supporting this stance, please read Deepak Chopra’s work and listen to the Dalai Lama.

Perhaps you’ve felt someone has really left you hanging in life, and you swear no one should ever trust this person again? So long as you live, you’re committed to make sure no one else ever has this experience and lets this “evil” person hurt anyone else.

You’re hurting yourself, and in the process, hurting others, as well.

The pain you’ve put yourself through by feeling this way is more than you need to experience, and it’s more than you deserve to feel. Carrying this with you is not about forgiving someone, but it’s about forgiving yourself from pain. When you learn to forgive yourself for this pain — or for allowing yourself to get hurt, however you see it — you’ll be taking a giant leap towards compassion.

The next step is to actually love the person who hurt you, at some level, and in some way. Rationally or irrationally, he acted according to his beliefs, and the result was hurting you in some way, shape or form. Practice compassion, because there is always another point of view.

Now, at first glance, each of these acts is “unforgivable”, and perhaps the further down the list you read, the less forgivable it gets. But, bear with me… allow me to explain:

Forgiveness — when you forgive an act, you are free to be creative and trust again. Without trust, it’s difficult to love, and without love, the heart is empty, and so is life. Happiness is an afterthought, and something you’ll learn to feel you don’t “deserve”, somehow.

Love or compassion for the person who hurt you — when you do the most difficult thing you can do, and you decide to actually love the person who damaged you and your life, you are repairing yourself, and in time, them. The inner suffering they are experiencing is only going to result in more hateful acts, and the hateful acts they commit are only going to hurt more people.

Now, for some of the list above, it’s probably impossible to imagine a circumstance that you, personally, would commit this act.

However, I’ll pose an argument for each, to show you that compassion is possible:

Business

If your spouse were dying of lung cancer, and there were an opportunity to save her life, but you needed a lung transplant you couldn’t afford, would you consider stealing the money? Even for a second? (regardless of whether or not you would do it)

Love

If you were led to believe your marriage was over years ago, and you did your best to stick with it for nearly a decade… only to “find out” that your husband were cheating on you (although you later found out he never strayed), how would you feel? Now, let’s say you fell in love, totally by accident, and the person with whom you fell in love made a move in your weakest moment, would you accidentally have a kiss before you broke it off? Is this even possible?

Rape

Independent of your own view on this horrid act, what if your son or daughter committed this tragic mistake, ultimately hurting another human being in an ‘irreparable’ way? Could you forgive your son or daughter, if they needed you to, or they were going to commit suicide once they realized what they’ve done?

Murder

Let’s say someone came up to you on the street and shot everyone in your family in both arms and legs, and they laid there bleeding on the street. They were about to do the same to you, and then they swore to keep hurting everyone, one body part at a time, until they bled out… would you attack? Would you defend your family? You might call this self-defense, which it is, but isn’t that still murder in some way? I think anyone who is murdering somehow feels they are defending themselves, in some twisted way. (maybe they feel humans are bad, and if they don’t kill humans, humans will destroy this world)

Child abuse

What if you could see the future, and you knew the only way to stop your son or daughter from crossing a busy street and getting hit by traffic — ultimately getting paralyzed and dying 10 years later — was to teach them now? And what if they absolutely wouldn’t listen? Would you even consider striking them, as a last resort to save their lives? Now, what if some twisted version of a parent felt so weak that he somehow thought he was seeing the future and saving his child’s life by doing this? Could this somehow, in some twisted way, be an act of love?

You see, it’s difficult to judge from the outside-in. The inner self can be a complicated place. And, if you simply accept another perspective might be possible, you are freeing yourself to love again. You are allowing love back into your life, and when you do, you will be happy again.

You deserve happiness and fulfillment. The person who hurt you deserves to never hurt anyone again, and by learning compassion for her, you will be her first opportunity to correct past mistakes and move forward with light and love.

Ultimately, your forgiveness and compassion may very well be the path to ending this terrible cycle of hate-crimes and hurtful acts. You have a chance to save another person from experiencing what you’ve experienced, and you have a chance to really live, brand new again.

I wish you happiness, health, and love; lots of love.

I’m so grateful for you,